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Mother1

Chapter 1 - Page 58: Of Oreos and Hocus-Pocus - by kenisu3000

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kenisu - #58
I've always felt the livingroom was awfully... stark. I designed it similar to what's seen in the game, knowing full well how bland and... I dunno, threadbare(?) it looked, but I wanted to keep it that way, just for a laughable throwback to the simple 8-bit design of the game. But dang, after drawing and coloring all these pages, it seems to me that I should have at least succumbed to wallpaper, windows and a light fixture! What kind of psycho house -doesn't- have windows around its front door? And without those windows or an immediate light source aside from the kitchen window, how could it be so bright indoors? That's the price of adhering 100% to the game's design for the house's exterior first, THEN putting together the interior. You look at the inner layout and realize it doesn't conform to the outer structure at all. In the game, the front door, as seen from the the livingroom, is brown and square at the top, with no built-in window, but outside, it's gray with a rounded top and window, AND the doorknob's on the wrong side! So I changed it to fit the outside appearance. At least that's one claim to consistency I can make.

I need a life.

Other Submissions by kenisu3000

kenisu - #01
Well, this is it. This project has been literally years in the making, as it's been brewing in my mind since I first finished the game in 2000 (coherent scenes that I recall to this day didn't start forming until summer of 2002). At any rate, I had been putting it off and putting it off, until finally, just this last April, when I came back to this site after a long absence and discovered that Mother 3 was soon to be released. That brought back the fanboy in me, and I wasted no time in making plans for a comic series of my favorite game in the whole trilogy - Mother 1. The mysterious elements of this game, and the uncanny landscapes which remind me of my childhood, have long held me entranced. So, I present to you what has been on paper only since April, but what has been cooking up in my mind since six years earlier.
To comment on this specific page, I'd like to admit that the introductory narrative was a bad decision on my part. For future reference, the phrase "Little did they know" automatically cheese-ifies ANY piece of fiction. George and Maria needed no formal introduction - they introduce each other. I should have used a single subtitle saying "Outskirts of a rural American town, circa 1906", but I guess it's all water under the bridge now.

kenisu - #02
This whole bit with George using British dialect ("oh pooh"
, "what a bother")... I'm not too familiar with the EXACT way people spoke back in 1906, but I knew it was more proper and people had much more respect for others and their elders than today, so I subsituted the only proper dialect I'm anywhere near familiar with. You'll see more of this "British" dialect later on in the prologue.
By the way, the game simply states that all this happened in the "beginning of the 1900's", not a specific year. I only chose 1906 because it IS stated that George returned two years later - in this case, that would be 1908 - and EarthBound Zero states that when the game, which IS officially stated to take place in 1988, begins, it is 80 years after George and Maria's time. So in case you were wondering, there is indeed a method to my madness.

kenisu - #03
For those who haven't played the game, or have a very good memory of it, you'll find out, much MUCH later, exactly WHAT it is that is above George and Maria's house (or you can just play Mother and it'll tell you right there in the two paragraphs in the opening narration).
What I'm most proud of in this page is the fifth panel (the long one that dives under Maria's "What is THAT above our house?!" panel and juts out a bit under the third) - I absolutely nailed what I had in my head for that shot, and it also gives a glimpse at what I love so much about the landscapes of Mother. If you don't pay much attention to the detail anywhere else on this page, study this panel carefully. At the left end you can see George and Maria in the distance entering the forest, and at the right end is a pair of mysterious legs and a tail descending slowly in front of their home.
The dialogue of the panic-stricken couple was quite touch-and-go for me. I wasn't exactly sure what direction I wanted them to escape, but I wanted Mothersday Town to be mentioned, so I made that their planned route (BTW, I found out recently that the holiday Mother's Day didn't even exist in 1906, much less a town named after it...). Then I needed an outlet for the couple, someONE they could run to. So, using the concept of simple names like "George", I had him mention, in passing, some guy named "James". At first, James only existed for the sake of George mentioning someone they could run to, but as I was illustrating page 7, I found a way to use James further as not only as an outlet, but as THE outlet to represent a family friend's reaction to all that's about to happen. Yes, we'll get to see James in person later, and he'll come strongly into play.

kenisu - #04
Why on earth would George tell Maria to let the ax be and just keep running? The answer is that the ax was heavy, and so it was slowing them down in their flight (hey, don't tell me YOU haven't lost your head and made bad decisions in time of panic).
The panel where Maria helps George back up was difficult for me to illustrate (character-to-character actions always are for me), so yeah, there was a massive amount of erasing and re-drawing there. And try to avoid the irony of the fact that in the very next panel, even though George needed help up, he's already back in the lead.
If you haven't figured out by now, the best way to experience my artwork is to take in as much detail as you can. In this case, don't just glance at the last panel, LOOK at it (hint: the expression on Maria's face).